Good Catch Lubos

Occasionally I check out Lubos Motl who blogs about physics in terms I don’t even pretend to understand, but who also posts some common sense about the world. What captures my attention this time is the sincere contempt about a piece of fluff sneaking its way into a normally reputable peer reviewed physics journal.

The title of the article is: Climate of scepticism: US newspaper coverage of the science of climate change and it is arguably the first published peer-reviewed article in the world whose main point is to accuse dozens of particular scientists from scientific misconduct and corruption just because the result of their research does not agree with the author's silly ideological fantasies, without having the tiniest glimpse of evidence.

The 15 pages make it absolutely clear that Liisa Antilla has no idea about the subject she is writing about - the climate in this case - and her ability to have learned the English alphabet is demonstrably her greatest intellectual achievement.

Like any good blogger, Lubos googled the author Liisa Antilla and was unable to find any evidence she is a scientist, but she does show up as a Rachel Carson Donor in the 2004 Sierra Club Annual Report. (page 25) Yes, that Sierra Club with the announced political goal of creating Cool Cities: Solving Global Warming One City At A Time, which is an advocacy campaign to get Mayors to impose Kyoto Protocol emissions restrictions on their cities. In practice this means dissuading citizens from driving their cars.

It is refreshing to read serious researchers beginning to take offense about the way political movements are abusing the process of measured restraint about the meaning of results. This trend will only contribute to a devaluation of science in the public mind. The majority of the population lacks any adequate training on how to evaluate the validity of information labeled scientific by the press, the government and the educational system. If working scientists will not call to task the mass media uncritically distributing overstated, incomplete, false and fraudulent claims, then it will be to the detriment of our society.